Marriage
- Turn it off.
- Rediscover your personal worth.
- Reflect your self-respect outwardly.
Here’s An Idea
When you get home early this week, before your wife, get ready for her.
Pick up your mess, draw her a bath, throw a towel in the dryer.
When she comes in the door, take everything out of her hands and pamper her.
For one night.
Because your wife loves surprises.
And she’s worth it.
If You’re Keeping Score, You Lose
If you’re keeping score, you lose.
We are naturally competitive. It is natural for us to try to be better than everyone else, at everything. As men, we keep score a lot. Sometimes though, we take it to the point where it is damaging.
We keep track of everything we do. Household chores become a competition. “I emptied the dishwasher the last three times, what is my wife doing?”
You can’t keep track of who did what chores when because it is destructive. You will start to spend more time thinking about the last time your wife did a particular chore instead of focusing on the act of loving service you are rendering.
There should be some type of division of labor, some system that makes each of you accountable. But you shouldn’t turn a lack of completion into a weapon in your mind against your spouse.
Marriage isn’t about equality, it is about being complementary. You and your spouse have unique likes, dislikes, and talents. Try dividing up the household tasks by natural ability. Take a few that you don’t like to remind you of your love for your wife.
It’s easy after the wedding to slowly lose touch of what it feels like to “love.” By taking on some of those unpleasant tasks, you can experience that selfless love in a physical, tangible way.
Don’t keep score. It is a waste of your time.
Ring Control Device
I drive a lot for work. Last year, I put 35,000 miles on my car. As a Christmas gift, my parents gave me a subscription to Sirius XM. One of the channels I listen to, if there is no good music on, is the clean comedy channel.
The comedy is pretty good. It is amazing that we start to think that if there is no profanity, a comedian isn’t funny or that somehow vulgarity increases the humor level. (P.S. It doesn’t.)
One day as I was listening, the comedian described his wedding ring as a “ring control device.” In the sketch, he seemed to indicate that it was his belief that women instituted the practice of a wedding ring to maintain control over men. He countered that it was okay if only you thought about doing something, but didn’t actually follow through.
There are issues with that fallacy that I won’t address in this post.
I want to address the wedding ring.
At a wedding, the spouses exchange the rings as a token of their love and affection. To consider it a ring control device would be a grave error on your part. The ring has no beginning and no end. The ring is a constant, visible, tangible reminder of your marriage covenant. It is a constant reminder of your spouse’s love for you.
If you need a ring to control your behavior, you are not ready to get married. Marriage isn’t a prison. It is a perpetual self-gift.
Why is it so Hard to Pray Together?
Why is it so hard to pray with your wife?
Intellectually, we’re there. We understand the benefit. We understand that it is a good thing to do.
Yet, when we’re in the moment, we get as nervous as the first time we asked her out. We lock up and shy away.
Our feelings are, however, not based in fact. She wants to pray with you. She longs for you to initiate. She wants to connect on that level.
Tonight, when you’re falling asleep together, roll over and invite her to pray with you. You’ll be glad you did.
I Slept with A Woman Last Night
This morning, I woke up and there was a woman in bed with me. It was my wife.
It is a story that plays out every morning, all around the world. Sadly though, many of those individuals are waking up to someone whose name they don’t remember, or whose personhood they don’t really care about.
How did we get here?
When did women become trophies or accomplishments?
When did we start lying to convincing ourselves that this doesn’t hurt us or affect our future?
We have allowed ourselves to be hollowed out. The messaging in our culture and media is so intense and so fast that we have begun to believe the lie. On our radios during the day and in our livings rooms in the evening, we are constantly told that the way to true manhood is to rack up a body count beyond compare. That is insane.
Our brains are sending us sincere signals. We long for companionship. We long to be loved. We long for community. We just need a meaningful way to respond to those signals.
Here is how we combat this mis-messaging.
The music we listen to and the TV shows we watch communicate messages to us. If it isn’t building you up, it is tearing you down. Change to talk radio or something more family friendly. Don’t watch shows that use sex for ratings. I’m not saying you have to watch the History Channel all day, but you need to recognize how television shows and movies influence you and your attitudes.
As a human person, made in God’s image and likeness, as a man, you have a unique identity. You have complete control over your activities, how you invest your time, and your body. Do things that make you better. Don’t buy yourself shiny new toys. Invest in a workout program, read a good book, eat breakfast at sunrise on your porch. Engage in sensory activities that you haven’t experienced in a while (like walking barefoot through a field) and enjoy the experience for what it is.
With every person that you come into contact with, radiate respect. Be a gentleman. Conduct yourself with professionalism. Don’t be as stiff as a freshly starched shirt, but don’t treat women like a slab of meat.
There are activities that build you up and there are activities that bring you down. Spend more time on the uplifting ones and man up.
If You Both Give 50%, You’ll Fail
Just over a month after my wedding, my wife and I attended my brother’s wedding. It was a beautiful occasion. He got married in the same Church as my grandparents. All of the family was there. The priest was a man we had known for 12 years, from his days in the Seminary.
It was a great experience for me because I was able to more deeply process my own wedding. On my wedding day, I had an acute clarity and presence of mind during the Mass. It was a great blessing to be able to absorb everything and not have to think about anything else. My brother’s provided me another opportunity.
The homily was excellent. I took away a major piece of advice. The priest said, “Marriage is not 50/50. If you both give 50%, then you will fail. You must both give 100%.”
Wow. It defies our basic math skills. Yet, after contemplating this sage wisdom, I saw its truth. If marriage was 50/50, it would be a joint venture. It would be a business transaction. Marriage is so much deeper. It is a covenant.
When the Israelites wandered in the desert, they had times where they gave 50% and times when they gave 100%. Things went much better for them when they gave 100%.
50% is trying. Trying isn’t good enough. When you try, you aren’t committed. When you are married, you are all in. 100%. It is all of you; the good, the bad, and the ugly.
That is the great thing about marriage. When you are both in 100%, there is nothing that you cannot accomplish. Your strengths fill in for her weaknesses. She is wise where you are not. You can see blind spots that she cannot. You are the ultimate team.
From a practical perspective, we would all rather be in relationships or situations where all parties are all in. If you are on a team at work and you are the only person who is fully committed, your work on that project is not very fulfilling. You spend a majority of your time trying to motivate the team to get with you and a very small amount of time actually making forward progress on the project.
Marriage is the same way. You won’t have a quality marriage if one of you spends most of their time and energy dragging the other one along. When you work together, when you are unified, you can overcome anything.
Marriage is an all in deal. Don’t get married until you are all in. Don’t get married until you are willing to be totally yourself, willing to bear all of your flaws. That’s the funny thing about being vulnerable. When you are vulnerable, there is a strength that comes. There is an honesty that opens up and a strong trust is built.
Don’t give a 50% try to your marriage. Go all in.
Financial Dreams
Money is something that people don’t like to talk about. The only thing we like to do with money is pretend that we have lots of it. It’s a shame because it is really a tool that can be our greatest ally.
My wife introduced me to Dave Ramsey two years ago. Since then, I have lived his principles and can’t imagine living any other way. What has been even more valuable has been Dave’s marriage advice.
I think that the thing that my wife and I do best in our relationship is handle our money. We have clear boundaries and neither of us would ever dream of crossing them. She’s not coming home with bags from a shopping spree and I’m not surprising her with my new iPad.
That isn’t to say that those things are bad. In fact, we have used our monthly budget to plan ahead and make those purchases. It does mean that when it comes to money, we know what is right and what is wrong.
The big secret is that money has nothing to do with it. Money is a vehicle. It is a vehicle for communication. When we communicate, we understand each other. We connect. The fact that we run a household together makes it necessary to communicate.
Whenever there is a problem in our marriage, we often wonder aloud why we can’t tackle this problem like we’re able to tackle our money. In fact, I try to find parallels to our handling our money to help us out of the rut.
We dream a lot about our money. We dream about what it will be like when we’re out of debt. We dream about how our life will be different. We dream about how we will be able to better help those in our community.
Yet, there is something much deeper going on. We are communicating what is important to us. We are communicating to each other our deepest desire to provide for each other. We are communicating our deepest desire that the other have all that they need.
If you and your spouse aren’t sharing the budgeting process together, you’re missing an opportunity. You’re missing the opportunity to love each other well.
I Had A Win
My desk, at the end of the day, is always completely clear. I am a generally clean person. I try to be diligent in maintaining cleanliness in my life.
Since both my wife and I work, it can be challenging to keep our home clean. We are both tired after a long day of work and the last thing that we want to do is clean. Still, work needs to be done.
While my wife was taking her test in March, I stayed in the hotel. My work primarily involved working on the Catholic Husband blog. Since I would be in the room during the day, that meant we wouldn’t have housekeeping work in our room.
Before I sat down to blog, I went through the room and picked everything up. I cleaned up the bathroom, made the bed, and rearranged our stuff. I wanted my wife to have a nice, clean atmosphere for when she got back to our hotel.
This was a win for me. I didn’t have a single thought of blame or begrudging. I just did it because I love her. It took me time to get to this point, but I’m here now. I’m not looking back.
Stop Sabotaging Your Marriage
The summer before my wife and I got married, I received a transfer for work to the city where she was going to be studying. It was great, after two years of a long distance relationship, we were finally in the same city.
While on a budget, we wanted to create opportunities to spend quality time together without racking up recurring expenses. I had grown to love running, so we joined a gym.
I was at the gym a few months ago and was idly watching one of the multiple televisions in the gym. I didn’t choose the channel, but a program came on that featured Rachel Ray doing a talk show. I’d look up the title, but I don’t want to waste my time. Anyways, on that particular episode, Rachel had Joy Behar on as a guest. The opening segment of that particular episode featured Rachel and Joy giving marriage advice.
“Great,” I thought, “this will be entertaining.” The first couple on was having a money fight. Not too uncommon in our time, unfortunately, but both Rachel and Joy were supremely confident that they could solve the issue right there. The wife had a complaint. She and her husband kept their finances separate and paid their “fair share” on the bills, but the wife was now mad at the husband. The husband made more money than the wife, and the wife wanted him to put more money into their joint savings account. There was some chatter, and Joy decided to illustrate a point. She said, roughly, that they wanted to keep their money separate so that she could go and get a manicure and not ask for money and he could buy his pornography and not have to ask for money. The crowd and Rachel busted into laughter. I did not.
It was in that moment that I realized why we have so many failed marriages in our country. It is for no other reason that we spend most of our time sabotaging our marriages. We put ourselves in positions that naturally lead to conflict. We set up our finances in secret literally ensuring that we will fight about it. Then, we grow envious of our spouse for making more money and then blaming them for the envy. We make major purchases without asking for wise counsel. We hang out with our friends after work and don’t call home. We put ourselves in potentially compromising positions with co-workers of the opposite sex. We treat pornography like it is harmless, almost to the point where we declare it a badge of honor or right of passage. It’s not that we’re stupid, naive, or oblivious. It’s that we focus on our needs first, and then those of our spouse.
What if we didn’t spend all of our time continuing to exhibit the behaviors that annoy our spouses? What if we asked them what idiosyncrasies we demonstrate that really annoy them and try to play them down? What if we gave ourselves fully over to our spouses and not tried to keep our lives separate?